2021 Skip Grant Invitational

We had a late day, and while I think we all appreciated the opportunity to sleep in a bit on a Saturday morning, it also means getting home much later than we are used to. In the interest of getting this thing up tonight, I'll keep it brief.

We had a little bit of a mixed bag with our performances. Some athletes ran extremely well and we saw nine new PRs and two season bests from our 21 athletes. Three athletes finished within five seconds of their PRs and another finished within five seconds of his season best. We also had a handful of athletes who did not run quite as well as they or I expected. Nobody should be more than a little disappointed in their performance today, though, and the important thing is that we learn from today and we perform at championships.

The last time we ran on this course was in 2016, so everybody's personal course best for the Agricultural Farm Park was set today. As always, in blue, I have noted all athletes who set a new PR (personal record) in the cross country 5k (3.1 mile). In red, I have noted all athletes who set a new SB (season best), but not PR, in the cross country 5k.

Junior Varsity

Here are the results for our junior varsity athletes (190 total entries in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the JV race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, and last 1.1 mile splits:

26 Hayden Walsh (Fr.) - 19:38.55 [(1) 5:47, (2) 6:59, (3.1) 6:53]

30 William Jackson (Fr.) - 20:03.47 [(1) 6:09, (2) 7:00, (3.1) 6:55]

69 Desmond Holt (Sr.) - 21:31.54 [(1) 6:16, (2) 7:33, (3.1) 7:43] SB by 23 seconds

118 Jacob Robertson (Sr.) - 22:57.23 [(1) 6:42, (2) 8:04, (3.1) 8:11] PR by 9 seconds

120 Jackson McCormick (Sr.) - 23:01.75 [(1) 6:40, (2) 8:05, (3.1) 8:17] PR by 25 seconds

126 Austin Boynes (Sr.) - 23:11.04 [(1) 6:55, (2) 8:11, (3.1) 8:05] PR by 21 seconds

130 Peter Brown (So.) - 23:28.26 [(1) 6:52, (2) 7:56, (3.1) 8:40] PR by 1 minute 36 seconds

148 Andrew Righi (So.) - 24:19.57 [(1) 7:11, (2) 8:49, (3.1) 8:20] PR by 23 seconds

152 Brendan Dougherty (Fr.) - 24:40.01 [(1) 7:11, (2) 8:49, (3.1) 8:40]

161 Maximo Legaspi (Jr.) - 25:21.66 [(1) 7:32, (2) 9:02, (3.1) 8:48]

162 Ian Brown (Sr.) - 25:31.57 [(1) 7:18, (2) 8:49, (3.1) 9:25]

172 Jaquada Moses (Jr.) - 27:28.38 [(1) 8:16, (2) 9:48, (3.1) 9:24] SB by 52 seconds

174 Carter Leecost (Fr.) - 27:38.68 [(1) 8:16, (2) 9:49, (3.1) 9:34] PR by 46 seconds

186 Anthony Bardonille (So.) - 29:24.53 [(1) 8:19, (2) 10:51, (3.1) 10:15] PR by 9 seconds

I'm really proud of Jacob. Last year was tough on everybody, but he was one of the hardest hit by the inconsistency of team workouts during the pandemic and lost almost three minutes from his PR. He's done a fantastic job to work his way back and has now broken 23 minutes for the first time in his career.

For those who did not set new PRs: Hayden was about five seconds off his PR and William was three seconds off his. Desmond is a little more than a minute away from his; it'll be a challenge to hit it next week but I've seen crazier drops on our championship course. Brendan ran exactly one second faster than he did last week at Gunpowder Falls, just less than 20 seconds off his PR. Maximo was two seconds off the season best he set last week and remains about 45 seconds from his PR. Ian bounced back nicely from a tough race last week to get within 17 seconds of his PR. And Jaquada is now just outside of 30 seconds away from his PR from two seasons ago; it would be a great accomplishment to hit that mark before the end of this season.

Team Results

1. St. Albans 42 points

2. The Heights 55 points

3. Gilman 57 points

4. Georgetown Day 65 points

5. Potomac 165 points

6. DeMatha 192 points

...

10. Edmund Burke 303 points

Overall I am very pleased with our performances. We know we don't have as much depth as a lot of Montgomery County schools so our junior varsity teams aren't usually very competitive in the team standings. But most of our athletes got better today and that's what's important heading into the most important meet of our season.

Varsity

Here are the results for our varsity athletes (91 total entries in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the varsity race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, and last 1.1 mile splits:

9 Jayden Keels (Jr.) - 17:21.04 [(1) 5:04, (2) 6:04, (3.1) 6:13]

17 Sayid Shakur (So.) - 17:36.75 [(1) 5:22, (2) 6:00, (3.1) 6:15]

18 Christopher Toomer (Jr.) - 17:38.51 [(1) 5:24, (2) 6:12, (3.1) 6:03]

24 Ian Parsons (Jr.) - 17:55.88 [(1) 5:15, (2) 6:17, (3.1) 6:24]

25 Graham Fenn (So.) - 18:04.64 [(1) 5:25, (2) 6:13, (3.1) 6:27] PR by 15 seconds

32 Michael Metz (Jr.) - 18:25.47 [(1) 5:36, (2) 6:22, (3.1) 6:28] PR by 12 seconds

55 Tariq Lewis (Sr.) - 19:44.89 [(1) 5:40, (2) 7:02, (3.1) 7:03]

Graham and Michael ran great today. Graham's second mile was about 15 seconds slower today than it was last week, but there was quite a bit more climbing in that portion of today's course and he more than made up for it by running faster in both the first mile and the last 1.1 miles of today's race. Michael ran just a bit slower in the first mile than he did on his previous PR course at Arundel, ran an identical second-mile split, and then took 18 seconds off the final 1.1 miles from Arundel!

Tariq's time today was identical to his Arundel finish, and his first mile splits on both courses were very similar. His first miles have been a good bit slower in his best races of this season so I think 5:50-5:55 is ideal for his first mile next week.

Christopher was just two seconds off his PR from last week and Jayden, Sayid, and Ian were all within 10 seconds. This wasn't quite the result we were hoping for, especially considering the perfect racing conditions we had, but nobody took a step back troubling enough to give us any doubts about what we can accomplish next week.

While none of them moved up in DeMatha's 5k rankings, they still all ran Top 100 5k times since 2000 and also bumped my freshman WCAC Championship time out of the Top 100.

• Jayden Keels - #47 for DeMatha since 2000

• Sayid Shakur - #66 for DeMatha since 2000, #13 for DeMatha sophomores since 2000

• Christopher Toomer - #69 for DeMatha since 2000

• Ian Parsons - #95 for DeMatha since 2000

Team Results

1. St. Albans 39 points

2. Gilman 60 points

3. Georgetown Day 82 points

4. DeMatha 84 points

5. The Heights 121 points

...

12. Edmund Burke 336 points

Two points was the difference between our fourth place finish today and earning t-shirts for a third place finish. A 17:04.8 for Jayden would have made a three-point difference; a 17:32.3 for Sayid or Christopher would have been a 3-point or 4-point difference, respectively. Small time differences can have a bit impact and remember that my projection from last week only put about a 15-point spread between first and third in the WCAC team standings.

Be ready to hurt more than your opponents next Saturday. Steve Prefontaine said, "I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into an exhausting pace and then at the end push himself even more." That needs to be our mentality next week. When you pass someone, pass them decisively. Make them think about how much more they're willing to hurt than they already are to try and go with you.

Final Thoughts

I'm not sure that we've ever had five Top 4 invitational finishes in any season in DeMatha cross country history. Certainly we often don't run in this many meets and we kept things very local this year, but this is still quite an accomplishment. We also came very close to doing something that, as far as I can tell, DeMatha has never done on a full 5k course - have five athletes under 18 minutes. Graham is very close to making that happen next week.

We have high hopes for Saturday, much higher than we thought possible entering this season, quite frankly. Some might look at our performances this year and say we've overachieved, but I've never liked that word. We've achieved. Period. I might temper my expectations at times, but I never put limits on what I think are possible. It's clear by the way our athletes have worked and pushed themselves, especially over the past month, that they have put no such caps on their beliefs in themselves, either.

Let's have a good week. Let's stay healthy. Let's push each other and support each other. Set yourselves up to make Saturday the best race you've run in your lives so far. Make sure our results on Saturday demonstrate the body of work we have all put into this season.

"I'm going to work so that it's a pure guts race at the end, and if it is, I am the only one who can win it." - Steve Prefontaine